GayLayAleJesus in a now-closed thread asked:

> So, I'm wondering for those who are atheist or part of another
> belief structure or religion outside Christianity, do you
> believe in Jesus Christ as a historical figure, or do you
> believe he never existed at all? Not being confrontational,
> just genuinely curious what y'all think.

The QUESTION itself is interesting. One way to look at the question is do we believe someone actually existed AND did all the things reported in the NT. Another is do we believe there was an actual person that later NT stories were based on.

Most interesting is the word "believe." I don't "believe" anything about the Historical Jesus. I have a lot of ideas, some of which I give more credence to that others. One possibility is that he was made up whole cloth out of nothing. Another is that the NT account is rather accurate if a bit exaggerated as to the miracles etc. There is a whole range of possibilities in between. Which, if any, of these really happened I have no 'belief.' I consider all of them possible.

But the question given to non-xians as do we believe Jesus was an actual historical figure is a rather fuzzy question.

Yeshua bin Joseph was probably a real rabbi who pissed off some people with his interpretion of Judaism, but the miracles etc., were probably embellishments lifted from other myths and "I knew a guy who knew a guy whose uncle said..." stories.
Just look at how much LDS history (after less than 200 years) is provably false, yet the mythology is not pooh-poohed by the church, so it will become true if not proven otherwise.

Without faith/belief in magic it all sort of falls apart for me. If there was any one specific person in history to base the legend, tale, whatever, I can't help believe it's all pretty much something that just grew and grew from fantasy more than fact. People basically believe what they want to believe. The greeks did a good job of telling moral stories.

I am with thread killer. Look at all the myths and glorified stories have come about in over 200 years of the church being around, glorified stories of Joseph Smith, etc. So one can only think of all that had changed and been glorified concerning Jesus and the Bible. I don't believe any of it. IMO, religion poisons everything. I WAS fanatically TBM (so I can empathize with them!) served a mission, and only got back a few years ago and i've completely left now...BEST decision I ever made! (if there are any TBM on the fence lurkers, no I wasn't offended and no I didn't leave to "sin" like the church always says! That's all just more lie$ they tell to keep you in!)

I recently listened to an excellent series of audio classes by Stanford University professor, Thomas Sheehan, about the very question of the historical Jesus. It is a series of about 10 two hour recordings that can be downloaded for free on ITunes.

His conclusion, with which most other biblical scholars agree, is that there was a Gallilean preacher named Yeshua who had a small but dedicated following. He never claimed any kind of divinty and performed no miracles.

Jesus is the Greek translation of the Aramaic name, Yeshua, which translated in English is Joshua. "Jesus" may not have been a myth but the NT stories of his divinity and miracles most certainly were.

Hmmm well that is interesting!

So then what are all those OT prophecies about?

It's no surprise that Jews don't believe in Jesus. The prophecies don't add up. Even between Mathew Mark Luke and John they couldn't get them all right.

It's also not a surprise that there are changes between the Torah and the Old Testament of the Bible after Christian sects got their hands on it.

Not hard to toy with prophecy when you control the script.

raptorjesus Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> It's no surprise that Jews don't believe in Jesus.
> The prophecies don't add up. Even between Mathew
> Mark Luke and John they couldn't get them all
> right.
>
> It's also not a surprise that there are changes
> between the Torah and the Old Testament of the
> Bible after Christian sects got their hands on
> it.
>
> Not hard to toy with prophecy when you control the
> script.


It is also a possibility that the historical Jesus deliberately did things that fulfilled the prophecies or at least some of them He , as well as all Jews, would have been aware of them.

Reading Mark carefully, Jesus only talks about preparing for the Son of Man.

He doesn't claim to be that person. That happens in other gospels.

His prophesy fulfillment would have been driven for something totally different than if he had claimed himself to be the Messiah.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/15/2011 08:50PM by raptorjesus.

raptorjesus Wrote:
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> Reading Matthew carefully, Jesus only talks about
> preparing for the Son of Man.
>
> He doesn't claim to be that person. That happens
> in other gospels.
>
> His prophesy fulfillment would have been driven
> for something totally different than if he had
> claimed himself to be the Messiah.

Nobody knows what Jesus thought his mission was or whether his views changed over time. You are presenting a theory and it is a good theory, but still a theory. We just don't know for sure. That said, I think your views are plausible.It is also unclear if Jesus claimed to be the son of God in a literal sense. You can make a case that he was speaking of himself as God's son in the same sense that everyone is a child of God.

Because Jesus was too either lazy, or illiterate or stupid to write anything down himself.

All we have are what other people said he did and spoke about.

But all of the son of God stuff comes much later.

Mark is the earliest work we have, and he never claims to be the Son of God.

So.....yes, we are still dealing with probabilities. But my money is on that if the earliest work doesn't represent him as claiming to be the son of god, it is more probable that he never did.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/15/2011 08:50PM by raptorjesus.

raptorjesus Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Because Jesus was too either lazy, or illiterate
> or stupid to write anything down himself.
>
> All we have are what other people said he did and
> spoke about.
>
> But all of the son of God stuff comes much later.
>
> Matthew is the earliest work we have, and he never
> claims to be the Son of God.
>
> So.....yes, we are still dealing with
> probabilities. But my money is on that if the
> earliest work doesn't represent him as claiming to
> be the son of god, it is more probable that he
> never did.

I don't think he did either, but we will never know. BTW, Mark , not Matthew is the earliest gospel

I said Mark was the earliest work!!! ;)

Good catch, thanks.

Bart Erhman also has a lecture series. http://www.archive.org/details/HistoricalJesus



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/15/2011 08:05PM by bona dea.

Josephus speaks of Jesus in his book "Antiquities of the Jews" but when watching the "Zeitgiest" movie's Religion portion it was suggested that the references to Jesus in Josephus' work was actually a forgery.

The film notes that other historians just after the time of Christ say absolutely nothing about Him.

MJF1980 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Josephus speaks of Jesus in his book "Antiquities
> of the Jews" but when watching the "Zeitgiest"
> movie's Religion portion it was suggested that the
> references to Jesus in Josephus' work was actually
> a forgery.
>
> The film notes that other historians just after
> the time of Christ say absolutely nothing about
> Him.

Josephus mentions Jesus twice. The first quote is at least partially a forgery. The second which mentions Jesus in passing as the brother of James is thought to be authentic.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Josephus_on_Jesus Also, Tacitus and Pliny as well as others mention Jesus. Zeitgeist is pure and unadulterated trash. The people who produced it are not scholars and they actually make up a lot of their so called facts about pagan gods.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/15/2011 08:53PM by bona dea.

Though Josephus mentions Jesus, there is nothing to show how Josephus knew Jesus was a real person. Josephus had no first hand knowledge of Jesus and never states how he knew Jesus existed. For all we know he just believed the same myth many others did. Without knowing the source of Josephus' knowledge, it is only a claim just like anyone else's UNSUPPORTED claim.

WHat about Caiaphus? His ossuary has been found.Besides archaeology is only one way of verifying someone historicity. It isn't like Jesus or his followers had the money to actually build anything and in their lives they were not important enough to have monuments built in their honor.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/15/2011 10:57PM by bona dea.

I believe that the historical Jesus did exist. I'm aware that a lot of myths were layered onto his story.

I know that expectations for a Messiah were at fever pitch at the time of Jesus's ministry. What I find interesting is that he was not at all what the Jewish people were expecting -- really the polar opposite. I also find it interesting that there was something about him that was so compelling, we still discuss him and study his sayings two thousand years later.

Bona Dea you are the meanest person on this board and the biggest coward. You said that i write like I am only 14 years old, and then "the gospels were written in the first century a.d." then you RAN before my reply.

Where can I read the first century gospels, other than a FRAGMENT!

Attack, attack, attack, but you don't stick. BTW all the references to Bart Ehrman (or whoever) is an appeal to authority, a logical fallacy, stand on your own two feet and tell the truth. You are about ten seconds from exposure as a sophist.

If you want it, you got it.

=D

lulu Wrote:
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> n/t

It might be a short show. I'm going off line and going swimming in a minute.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/15/2011 10:58PM by bona dea.

roflmao Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Bona Dea you are the meanest person on this board
> and the biggest coward. You said that i write like
> I am only 14 years old, and then "the gospels were
> written in the first century a.d." then you RAN
> before my reply.
>
> Where can I read the first century gospels, other
> than a FRAGMENT!
>
> Attack, attack, attack, but you don't stick. BTW
> all the references to Bart Ehrman (or whoever) is
> an appeal to authority, a logical fallacy, stand
> on your own two feet and tell the truth. You are
> about ten seconds from exposure as a sophist.
>
> If you want it, you got it.
>
> =D
O good, another Timothy wannabe who knows nothing about history or logical fallacies. See ya.

Got Q?

Got evidence of hysterical JuHEEsus?

WTF, mate?

Extraordinary claims, bona dea.

Where's the beef?

Timothy

I definitely don't believe that this person, if he actually existed, was God. But it's an interesting study to try and discover if the central figure of the religion existed or not.

I've seen some really excellent arguments for and against, so I don't really have a belief about it. I think it could go either way.

I like to study it though.